Do your pupils have a hard time remembering which homophone - there, their or they’re - to use in their writing? Well, with this gruesome zombie poster, those days are done! I’ve always found it works very well to remind pupils which version to use. The poster is uploaded as a PDF and the original .pub in case you want to edit it.

The all-new Homeworkopoly mega display. The perfect way to get your pupils completing their homework every week, or you can edit the display and make it a ‘readingopoly’ to change the focus for your classroom. After the pupils complete their homework they can roll a die and when they land on a Community Lunchbox they can do something nice, for example sitting on the teacher’s chair. If they land on Chance then they are given random tasks like teaching the class something at the end of the day. Landing on a Brain Binder will give them a riddle, or a grammar or maths questions they need to answer. All of these cards are fully editable so they can perfectly suit your class. Included in the download is a zip file with PDF versions of everything you’ll need: the board itself, a rule sheet, name pieces, the Homeworkopoly sign, Brain Binder, Community Lunchbox and Chance cards. In addition, it comes with fully-editable .pub versions and for those of you with Macs that can’t open .pubs there are also fully-editable Word documents.

Every GPS definition you’ll need to display to your class of little angels (or devils - cohorts do vary after all). All display resources are given as both a PDF and an editable .pub. Buy KS1, LKS2 and UKS2 for £2 each (click on my profile to find the individual display packs) or buy the whole set for the reasonable sum of £5 - saving yourself £1 that could be used to buy a long stick with which you could pat yourself on the back for buying such a fantastic display resource.

A full guided reading unit of six lessons based on the fantastic child-friendly version of the short story ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ by Ursula Le Guin. This unit will be sure to improve your class’ vocabulary, as well as make them think about whether the suffering of one person is ever worth it for the happiness of many. Lesson 1: Like all the guided reading planning on Class Helper, the first lesson is a knowledge harvest. In this lesson the pupils will mindmap their associations with the words in the title before making initial predictions of the story. Lesson 2: The pupils will gather the description of the city and use this to draw their own picture of Omelas and using quotations from the text to describe their drawing. Lesson 3: In this lesson, the class will read more of the story and use this as a base for their predictions now they know more about the mysterious city of Omelas. These predictions will be revisited in lesson 6. Lesson 4: In this lesson we discover the city’s dark secret and infer the emotions and describe the appearance of the characters using the text to support ideas. Lesson 5: We read more of the story and answer questions on the text. Pupils will need to infer from the story and give their own opinions. For less-able pupils a scaffolded answer sheet is provided so they can access the lesson. Lesson 6: In the final lesson the pupils will have to think about whether they would walk away from Omelas or live with the guilt of the child’s suffering. They will then have to look back to their predictions from lesson 3, and compare these predictions with what happened. The download includes fully editable Word document success criteria for every lesson, text extracts for each lesson, PowerPoints and a unit plan for guidance, along with display items you can put on your guided reading board.

A full guided reading unit of seven lessons all about newspapers. This unit will cover the differences between tabloids and broadsheets, facts and opinions and the features of newspapers. Lesson 1: Like all the guided reading planning on Class Helper, the first lesson is a knowledge harvest. In this lesson the pupils will mindmap their associations with newspapers and any features they know. Lesson 2: We look into the features of newspapers in detail and look at the contrasting differences between tabloids and broadsheets. Lesson 3: In this lesson, we’re focusing on digital newspapers and answering one mark mock Sats questions on the provided article. Lesson 4: Building a wide vocabulary is key within Class Helper’s guided reading planning and in this lesson pupils will underline adjective in a film review and use thesauruses to find synonyms and antonyms. Lesson 5: Focusing on the photographs and captions used in newspaper articles, in this lesson pupils will create their own drawing to match the article. Lesson 6: What’s more fun than one lesson of Sats questions? Yes, two! And two is the keyword as this lesson focuses on two mark questions. The text in this lesson looks at a typical tabloid article. Lesson 7: The final lesson in this guided reading unit looks at the difference between fact and opinion. Pupils have a worksheet with different statements about the given article and they need to work out whether the statements are fact or opinion, and back up their answer using quotations. The download includes fully editable Word document success criteria, texts for each lesson, PowerPoints and a unit plan for guidance.

A whole-class guided reading unit of eight lessons based on the brilliant short story ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ by Ambrose Bierce. This is a perfect fiction unit of guided reading lessons aimed at Year 6 pupils. Lesson 1: Like all the guided reading planning on Class Helper, the first lesson is a knowledge harvest. In this lesson the pupils will mindmap their associations with the words in the title before making initial predictions of what will happen in the story. Lesson 2: In this lesson we are shown the opening scene of the story, with the main character about to be hanged from the side of a bridge, for crimes we haven’t yet discovered. Pupils will note down everything they know so far from this extract, giving them a firm understanding of the setting and prompting them to make predictions. Lesson 3: Pupils will answer retrieval questions on the text, using P.E.E. (point, evidence, explain) that is introduced in this lesson. Learning and practising P.E.E. is a useful skill, not just for answering guided reading questions, or for SATs questions, but is a great skill to hone for writing essays and forming strong paragraphs. For a display poster that works alongside this lesson, click here. Lesson 4: The class will discover the crime that Peyton Fahrquhar committed and describe and contrast the emotions of the main character between the flashback and him standing on the bridge, awaiting his punishment. Lesson 5: We read more of the story and see how Peyton falls to his death, but at the last second, the rope breaks and he falls into the water below. The pupils will underline and annotate the text and then use this information to draw a picture of the main character in the water now he’s miraculously saved. Lesson 6: In this lesson, pupils will underline the adjectives used in the text and use thesauruses to find synonyms and antonyms of these words. Lesson 7: Peyton has managed to get free of the noose and is swimming away from the bridge as cannons and rifles hit the water around him. The class will take this tension-filled moment to consider the character’s thoughts and emotions by hot-seating the character. Lesson 8: The final lesson will see one of the greatest twists in fiction. The main character reaches his home, and is about to embrace his wife, when a sudden darkness hits him, and we realise he was only imagining his escape while falling from the bridge. The class will plot his emotions onto a graph (worksheet provided with the download) and explain why they have made their choices. The download includes fully editable Word document success criteria for every lesson, text extracts for each lesson, PowerPoints and a unit plan for guidance, along with display items you can put on your guided reading board.

This six-lesson unit of whole class guided reading focuses on war poetry from World War 1. Perfect for KS2 (I personally delivered these lessons to my class of years 5/6). Each lesson includes all the resources ready to deliver a fantastic session: a PowerPoint presentation (with difficult language already explained), any worksheets or texts needed for the children and differentiated Success Criteria! Also, remember that all PowerPoint presentations can be opened using ActivInspire (send me a message if you need help exporting the file!) The unit will cover the following areas: Lesson 1 - discussing the genre and predicting the features of the poems Lesson 2 - summarising the events in Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ Lesson 3 - pupils will take learning into their own hands and study one of Siegfried Sassoon’s famous war poems: ‘How to Die’, ‘Suicide in the Trenches’ or ‘Absolution’ Lesson 4 - in this lesson, the class will be comparing the poems they’ve already read with Jessie Pope’s pro-war poem ‘The Call’. This is a great lesson for discussions on the themes of pro and anti-war poetry! The questions are scaffolded with the sentence stems provided for their answers Lesson 5 - for a different twist on the theme, this lesson will be looking at Ted Hughes’ ‘Platform One’ and the children will be visualising the poem by drawing key scenes from it Lesson 6 - one final look at the work of Wilfred Owen and the fantastic ‘The Sentry’. Pupils will develop their ability to skim, scan and close-read by working out if the statements are true or false